


Stars in his Eyes

by peoriapeoria



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Gender AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-23
Updated: 2012-08-23
Packaged: 2017-11-12 17:06:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/493647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peoriapeoria/pseuds/peoriapeoria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU where Steve Rogers was always female. Details change, but the Captain stays the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stars in his Eyes

Prologue

Captain America was beautiful. Is beautiful, she is beautiful. This doesn't surprise Tony Stark, he's had pictures of her since he was a kid. She, they, were the one thing his father ever shared with him without an undercurrent of scorn. The pictures didn't do her justice; then again he was probably high from combat.

He wanted her back in her proper uniform, not the knockoff based on the comic book fake Captains. Twelve stars run up one sleeve, across her chest and down the other sleeve. That would have to be redone. There were two new states since she'd gone into cold storage. At least the SHIELD-provided costume had left off the chest star of the comic books. Gotten her stripes wrong, way too wide, an aesthetic matter, but left the target off her heart and lungs.

HIs father had probably told him things that were classified, but he'd never seen footage of her using the shield. He wanted to do motion capture modeling. He wanted to be able to watch without alien invasion and other distractions. His father had looked so proud when he asked if it was right to have a bull's eye on the shield. It was intentional, the better for hits to be aimed at the shield's strength.

She sat and skinned back her hood. Scratched a hand through sweat matted blonde hair. There had been just a few photos with her not in the suit, mostly in her WAAC uniform. He'd not thought as a child just how old those photos were, though as an adult he knew how classified they were. They showed the main players in the Rebirth project. Those that had survived.

Tony looked at Bruce, who'd also taken the serum and survived, had remained sane. She'd been the one success, the subject that least met their brief. It was suggestive. And yet in 70 years they hadn't again thought to try the serum on a eighty-five pound woman. Tony wasn't the one to remove those blinders. He hoped that in another 70 years no one would be so frail. 

\--------------------

It hadn't been exactly given that she'd move in. Bruce and Thor, yes, they agreed pretty readily, Clint and Natasha had to get approval (Bruce did too, but he agreed and then sought it while the agents sought it first and agreed once they had it). She'd questioned how it would look.

Maybe he shouldn't have asked about the Howling Commandos and foxholes. Maybe a World War was like Vegas. She'd eventually said yes; she asked if the offer was still open.

"Yes, you can still join us in the Tower." Like he'd say there was no room?

""It's the 21st century." Said like she was still convincing herself, like a pumped up Dorothy.

"Right." Tony smiled, resisting saying anything else. He did understand he shocked people as a regular course, and mostly he figured people could do with being shocked. He was making an exception for those coming directly from the 1940s, with minor sidetrip of saving the world. And, not having their team leader in residence might make him in charge and that wasn't going to work. Better to play nice.

Now, Tony didn't see her much at first, because he liked being in his lab, and then there was helping Bruce settle in, and once in awhile Pepper had him scheduled to do various things. He saw her around, her up early for a jog as he turned in, in the gym. Once he found her washing dishes. Dishes!  
"Laundry day?" She didn't appear to be heading to SHIELD, despite being dressed in their clothes. She could wear a burlap sack it'd be more flattering.

"JARVIS has been very helpful, thank you."

He spun one of the chairs and straddled it. "Though basic black does have something to be said for it, it's a little Tribecca."

"That's supposed to be bad."

"Not exactly. Yes, but no. JARVIS, make sure NYC gets top billing on re-acclimation." He organized his thoughts, came up with a spin. "If you want to wear black, that's valid. Plenty of people do that. Why be part of the crowd though? You've got your back pay and the ultimate in rent control at zero a month--"

"Back pay?"

"JARVIS, she does have back pay?" He had lawyers if the bean counters thought screwing over an icon was on their bucket list.

"Oh, yes, that has not been overlooked. And it has the appropriate interest included."

"Should I whistle?"

"You, no, sir. Anyone else, it wouldn't be infelicitous."

"I get paid for the time I was on ice?"

Her surprise made Tony hurt. He wasn't even sure if she'd been able to draw her pay after the USO period. Finding that money might take more time. "And interest for the years you couldn't draw it. It's yours, even a total profligate would spend it better than Congress." He smiled as she cracked, after a moment of baited breath.

"Death and joking about taxes we had plenty of in the forties." She continued. "I'll remind myself of that when I boggle at prices."

"JARVIS, you help the good Captain." He had made a habit of giving her the new toys first. He told himself she'd be impressed by anything, even a Radio Shack prepacked kit. He liked the honesty of her feedback. The pendant was JARVIS's eyes and ears (and all the other sensors Tony had thought up and fitted in) while an ear bud let JARVIS talk to her.

"Naturally." The AI said it as she got up with a certain amount of relish.

He shouldn't have been so quick to get her out of SHIELD's uniforms. They were libido detractors. Apparently so was her actual uniform, which made no sense. He'd changed it some, now thirteen stars tagged across from one wrist to the other, iridescent afterimages winking both around and between. So it took the Star-Spangled Gal right to the edge, but he'd brought the blue of the upper torso down to a sort of bolero and the red and white stripes twisted in a way a man with designers on speed dial could arrange. He was pretty happy with the red boots, long shank old school combats completely reworked to use every innovation of the past half century. So they were still a bit fetishist, but better than her old ones. He didn't even question what they were thinking. He kept forgetting to check on what she actually wore in the field.

Had he thought she'd dress like a regular person? Had he thought she'd look like a children's librarian? She looked surface of the sun HOT in trousers and Levis, darted shirts, sleeveless shirts, translucent shirts (those warm ivory tanks were a menace). Classic. She wasn't old-fashioned, she pwned what had been cutting edge and now was timeless.

Tony was sure it wasn't just Pepper-withdrawal. He didn't have this problem with random women and NYC had plenty of gorgeous random women, even ones Tony hadn't ever banged. That said nothing of the men. He just wasn't interested. Right.

He admitted to himself he didn't want to look bad to her. Not that he had shame, but she had this way of looking disappointed that he never wanted to be the cause of; he was, naturally, but this he could control. His hands and toys would have to do until he got over this kink. That's all it was. DOA. Once he was past this, he'd go back to his wanton pre-Pepper ways.  
\---------------------------------------

They clicked. Like ratcheted gears in a high speed machine they clicked. They bickered, listened and bickered some more. Tony had a problem. He looked forward to their bickering.

He couldn't stand most people when he wasn't drunk or fucking; he'd spent long years doing both as insurance against the vapidity of the majority. That had been an advantage of MIT, one was generally enough, and sometimes a buzz or flirting would round off the edges.

He wasn't drinking nearly as much as he once did, and all his sex was solo. He just couldn't stand most people at something that passed for sober, even fucking. 

She was so not like other people. He had to be sober with her or he missed things he shouldn't.

"Captain America is a Red." Tony had a poor brain/mouth filter, and he didn't disagree in the specific. He was just a little surprised. What she said next had floored him.

"This surprises you?" She thought a moment, "I suppose it would." She looked at him, sadly, then continued.

"I was happy riveting the insides of plane wings. It was the best paying, best work environment I'd had or could have hoped to have. That included pasting in the come hither pictures of better looking girls who'd never have fit in the space."

Tony didn't forget that she'd been so happy she'd signed up for a risky experiment. For a month he let JARVIS spool out American history from 1917 to 1945 instead of blasting his music.

He marveled at how she played the press. She could put english on their expectations and it was nothing but net as she directed them to see with different eyes. She hid in plain sight frequently, setting up and taking down folding chairs, toting trays of seedlings and chopping vegetables. Finding her became the new local news plum.

Tony played less to spend more time with her. Bickering.

\---------------------------------

Tony was kissing her, and he was going to die, and she was kissing back and he had to be in heaven though he knew that wasn't the direction he was going. Her hand pressed against his sternum, high over the arc reactor, forcing him back to arm's length. A wall was at his back, him pinned to it.

She was, beautiful was too flimsy a word. And then she was kissing him, pinned to the wall. Oh, yes, yes-- She stopped. Dropped her hand. Looked at him in a 'don't follow me' and left.

Things were awkward, and he played to exhaustion when he lost the taste for inventing. He missed their bickering. Not that it was absent a long time, a few plans of domination and subjugation and it was like it had never been gone. Which was good. They came up with better plans together than either did apart. Even her.

They kept forgetting not to get too close. They kept remembering though, and Tony spent more than usual on slick and punching bags. He thought, perhaps hoped, she was about to forget forgetting and just forge ahead. They were both adults, even if he generally didn't act it. He'd never spent so much time not losing his clothes.

"Howard thought he loved me."

It was a glacier down his pants. He eeled away from her and spent the next eighty-three hours in his lab. He was totally off playing for another two weeks. Then it dawned on him 'Strategic'. She knew he would supply things she never said, believe what was untrue without her telling a lie.

Finding her alone was work. "Did you have sex with him?"

"No."

Good. She and his monkey spanking were rather intimately linked. 

"I knew better than that." She looked at him. "Have you ever thought just how sure people thought fate hung in the balance that they turned fission into a weapon? That's how sure they were about needing super soldiers. And I was the only success." 

"And now?" He knew there were plenty of reasons not to sleep with him, for a good person, a rational person. Reasons that should have stopped Pepper, but prolonged exposure to him could try a saint.

She walked away. It was slightly fast, her absent answer deafening.

Tony missed the bickering even more than the making out. He had toys for the later, and completion was assured. Which was not to say he didn't miss making out, that for all its momentary frustrations-- There was no substitute for the bickering.

"Tony, if you would stay after the meeting." The room cleared so fast afterwards he was listening for the sonic boom. "I've not been fair to you. I'm sorry."

What? That boom must have happened in his ear drum. He lifted a hand to check for blood.

"I am as you've mentioned more than once old-fashioned. That's harder to rewrite than my body was. I didn't take that into account, and for false pretenses, I apologize."

"But you want to?" She didn't answer. As if that firm jaw wasn't an answer; he'd gotten good at reading her, all the between the lines soliloquies. "You do know that blue balls isn't fatal or even all that debilitating as long as the sufferer has some freedom of movement?" Tony smiled as she blushed. "I can take care of myself, want to run relays with me?"

She nodded.

Thank the Captain! "Do you think dating would help? It's not really my thing but we could try."

"Maybe. Just no production numbers."

"Not even a mime or balloon animals?" She slapped his shoulder. "Tonight?"

Phase two was, well it was weird. Good, but weird. It was almost like he'd been granted virtue and she was protecting it. Weird. He managed to not raise her ire, though he did get her blood pressure up. She would just leave when she thought her judgment was becoming impaired.

"Mountains majesty." She'd told him to just go ahead and take her shirt off. The valley was too tempting. He prospected, nuzzling his beard against her breasts, kissing, his tongue taking a swipe.

"Off." The hand holding his head was a mixed message, until he figured out she meant her bra not him. He could do that. He reached around and pulled the hooks apart like a finger puzzle. He pulled back, reaching one hand back over her fingers. Freed,Tony leaned back and slipped the straps from her shoulders and lifted the fabric. Awesome. He touched, teased, avoided the nipples. Oh, those nipples that could launch ships.

She rolled them, pinning him to the back of the couch, rubbing sensitive flesh against his beard. His lips latched on. Her breasts were the purest multitasking, thumbing one while he sucked the other, then he switched. Her hands clutched at him, that was so hot, power restrained. He wanted to slide down her and eat her out. Instead he took her mouth, still cradling her breasts in either hand. She slid her leg up to where he could grind into it.

Too perfect. He came in his pants. He was startled by the hot washcloth dropped on his shirt covered chest. She shrugged into her shirt, stuffing the bra into her jeans' pocket. Left.

Tony unzipped and cleaned up, stroking too sensitive flesh just to the edge of pain. He wanted her wrapped around him, pressing him down on his bed, or the floor for that matter.

The first time she shoved her hand into his pants surprised him, and more than half of the surprise was that he didn't lose it right then.

"Take off your shirt."

Tony waited, then began struggling with buttons when her hand made to release him.

"Both of them." She rolled his left ball and he only protested she not stop. He flung both away.

She ran the fingers of her other hand over the scars, still promising his cock and nuts every pleasure with the first fist. Tony raised his arms, leaving his torso exposed. He lost it as she kissed his chest. She didn't leave though, just told him to shower.

She was still there when he came out in a towel. "Cap?" As nicknames went, maybe it paled.

"Sleepy?"

Right. "No."

"Then put something on and get back here."

He found some pajamas that he never wore and was back to her fast.

"Are you feeling up the fabric?" Not that Tony minded, since he was on the other side of the red silk.

"Yes."

"Carry on then."

Tony woke up and felt he was still dreaming. They'd all been exhausted after the latest mission. He'd started for the lab, there were improvements to make to the armor. 'Bed' she had told him. There might have been some taunting. 'Proof you should go to bed.' Okay, she'd had a point, he'd completely missed he wouldn't be sleeping alone.

Sleeping. It had been a trying mission. Now was sweet torture, the small spoon to a tank and shorts wearing Captain, her arm wrapped around him like a clamp. Her leg shifted between his. Torture. The thigh pressed against him more firmly.

"I'm awake and you're up."

He groaned. Rocked. Stretched out his arms. She liked stroking up his sides. He loved the way she pinned himself to her.

"Take care of that."

Oh if he could bottle her voice. It spread over his neck and seeped into his blood. He took himself in hand, spinning it out. There was ever that glimmer of promise that this would be the time, this the erection she granted entry.

"Did you--" The shimmy of her breasts against his back is her answer, only his own tee separating them. He'd rubbed it against her before putting it on last night. He wanted to dress her head to toe in silk. It muted the reactor's light to a bare glow. "Take it off."

She was a tease. He knew she favored his chest in a way beyond reason, so her slow drag of fabric up and down had to be ratcheting her up at least as much as him. Boiling.

She relented, stripped it off. She gathered his wrists in one hand, took him in the other hand. She took him apart. He was muddily aware of her cleaning him gently, tucking him back in. Sliding back behind him. He took the sound of silk against skin into sleep.

Tony was coming to like sleeping, or at least tolerate turning in like he heard people, other people, did regularly. Not every night. He didn't have a large enough sample size to know all the parameters she used. He however wasn't liking the rumbles their teammates were making. He figured she'd heard them too, but not while she'd have to acknowledge that fact. Super-hearing. As if he couldn't satisfy her if she'd give him the chance; he got more smiles out of her than he'd thought possible from just his company.

The dinner didn't tip him off. Tony couldn't anticipate her, she didn't run to script. He sensed something was different as she pushed him onto his bed, his pants dropped along the way. He started unwrapping her, wondering why there were so many buttons. She'd seen him with circuit boards so he couldn't just send them flying. He had to slip one after another through each slit.

She was wearing The Bra. Purple mountains' majesty. It was just like several other of her bras, except for the color. He'd had JARVIS place a standing order with the shops she favored and the first place she bought bras after slipped in an extra of her selections. The order was then canceled and the other shops paid to provide fittings for a women's shelter. There could only be one.

She had his wrists pinned to the bed with one hand, sexy beyond words. He lifted his legs on autopilot, rather lost in her secured breasts. They were there. He sought her eyes as she gripped his cock. What?!

He was being driven insane, she was teasing his glans against her clit and folds. He fought bucking. She pulled back.

"It's okay."

Which was to say she could react faster than him. He was molten. Tony moved and she retreated while maintaining contact. Oh to be quenched, this sweet hell folded and annealed.

She dropped down, slid him into her. Her hands went to his shoulders. His hands found her head, her back, her ass. Her strong muscled ass. He'd never thought himself lucky, but he was. He kissed her as his hands drifted back up. Tony unhooked her bra and she started to move.

He was utterly focused. He interjected flourishes but otherwise let her spool this out. She came so beautifully and Tony wind-milled not to go over too. He rolled them and used his knowledge to launch her twice more before righting them and going over himself.

"What?" He watched her put her bra back on, skin damp from his shower.

"Run. You sleep."

He looked over at the clock that looked like a light sculpture. "Why?"

"I'll see you at breakfast. Two hours."

Tony being Tony intercepted her in an hour and forty five minutes, after calling her earlier with instructions not to run in a loop.

"Tony." She shrugged and let him escort her into an establishment that didn't do breakfast. 

It was suitably decadent to brunch at this hour to forgive it being this hour. She looked fabulous in her sweats against the velvet and gilt. He'd have eaten with her in a truck stop if he'd had to; she purposely jogged where she wasn't a distraction, where people weren't doing what they did when they were there. She had some of the primest parts of the city as her gym. 

Of course she insisted on completing her run. She even offered him to come along. "I didn't bring my suit." Her fifteen minute run, which he expected would last more like twenty or thirty after his interruption, would be punishing for an athlete. She squeezed his hand and was gone.

He knocked on her door, which was ridiculous, he could have had JARVIS announce him.

"Tony." She looked him over in his pajamas. "No oil stains?"

"May I?" She let him in. "I--"

"Get in bed."

He did, propping himself up on one arm. He tried on umbrage for a moment when she laughed. He liked her laughter. He liked her sliding into his arms too, which she did just then. In silk pajamas. Tony rolled over as small spoon and she requested the lights off. He brushed the back of her hand with his fingers. He'd ask her. Not yet. It was still too new he wanted to get the ratio further away from dividing by zero. She was putting his experience to good use; such good use. Yeah.

The whispers around the tower had changed. Which was good, but he wanted to shut them down since they forgot that while his sex life had literally been public record if not news, she wasn't that fond of the twenty-first century's frankness. 'It's crass.' The only thing stopping him was he didn't have a clue how to get them to shut it without saying the words.

"Tony?"

"Why didn't you say something?"

"Figured you knew."

She was lying and he wasn't going to call it. She'd confess eventually.

"I didn't think it'd be so obvious."

That was odd. "It's probably the one thing I'm not experienced with, but still, why?"

She didn't answer just kissed his temple.

He asked again while they were basking in after glow.

"You'd have freaked." She had picked up slang but it was woefully out of date. "Be honest."

Yes, he would have. It was bad enough, when his ego didn't engorge from the thought, knowing after the fact. He let his hand drift. She rolled against his fingers. It was amazing.

It didn't come out on the front page. The newspapers still had presses somewhere and one treaded carefully where the Marines were concerned. Gossip columnists were cut from stronger cloth. The photos that came out, because yes there were photos, were the most tasteful covers borne by tabloids. SHIELD intercepted most of the Captain's mail. She made a scrapbook of the letters sent by girls. Maybe some of them were small boys. Tony was horrified by the number of unicorns on the stationary.

Natasha slugged him. Okay, so they were sparring. Which showed just how far from keel he was. Clint was the only man that did that willingly. Thor, god, totally different thing. She glared at him then it was like it never happened. Good thing he mostly didn't sleep alone.

Howard Stern was remarkably tasteful, having Martha Stewart's daughter explain baking an apple pie during a week of patriotic gags. Jon Stewart played a mashup of all the crud and saluted Tony. Letterman had a top ten list of new novelty items. Three of which Stark Industries already had in production. It was great Pepper was CEO.

"I'm going on Colbert Report."

"You do know that it's a fake news show?"

"Trust me."

Thing was, he did. Himself, no, but her, without question.

"I just want to thank the American people for being so concerned about Tony Stark's welfare. While I was born seven administrations before him, I'm quite fond of Tony."

Tony learned something then. Rush Limbaugh's fans still had mothers. There was a weird cougar fervor (and a charity calendar with The Captain as Ms July on her bike, the youngest model seventy five.) and then it burnt out.

Pepper sent her flowers, daisies and carnations. The card simply read "The roses are at the V.A."

Tony was concerned that something untoward had slipped through SHIELD vetting given the way she was looking at the letter.

"JARVIS please conduct a security check on Theodore Oskar Montgomery."

Tony tried to see the address, then gave up to get the armor on.

"He wants an introduction to Miss April."

Tony spun. "How old is Mr. Montgomery?"

"Just says Korea."

Oh. He did the calculations. Younger than her by a wide margin, but both old enough to do as they chose. "JARVIS, conduct a security check on Miss April." Violet, Fern he couldn't remember. She'd been cute in that duck yellow rain coat and boots. "What do you really know about her?"

One of these days she was going to sling him over a shoulder. Tony lived in anticipation. Sadly, not today. "How about a gala?" She looked at him. Or spanking, he could accept a spanking. "It's next week."

Natasha slapped him on the back of the head. He didn't question where she came from, just surrendered the black Amex. Natasha herded Sleeping Beauty away.

Nothing but net. He headed to the lab to celebrate.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for this being unbetaed, I was unable to secure one in this fandom. Please, point out flaws I've missed. Thanks.


End file.
